Lindsay Gloade-Raining Bird

There are things I do to forget: Laugh more, take my dog for long meandering walks, concentrate on a new diet and exercise program, watch hours of both good and bad TV, and read books. Lots of books. But, it doesn’t matter. Death is everywhere. Characters disappearing as easily as the light slips away in the summer—later than you thought, but quicker, too.

I have selective memory problems and like a healed amnesiac it hits me sometimes, a bright light in a dark room. I want to remember him stronger, younger, fierce—but when I think of him it’s always propped up in a hospital bed, tubes pumping and draining his tired body. His legs, thinned, and the feel of his calloused heel as I rub in Aveeno lotion, wondering if it tickles.

Grief is a tricky, stalking thing. A shaded presence in my peripherals. Breathing on my neck at the stove. Sinking into the cushions next to me as I type.

I read the poems he wrote after my grandmother’s death and I can’t write my own. What more is to be said? Here are all the things I never said to you. Here’s what I whispered in your ear when everyone else left the room. Here are the ways I feel I failed and all the regrets I carry with me just like before. Saying goodbye takes a moment, a weekend, a lifetime. I hardly knew you. I knew so much.

I take my coffee in his old mugs and wear his oversized socks despite the heat. All we leave are things behind. Plates that break in my suitcase and Ziploc bags of old photos.

And love.

The kind that hangs over us like a fog, unable to settle, leaving imprints in our hair and kissing our cheeks. The kind of moisture that feels like a homecoming—this place you never wanted to return to but can’t bear to leave.